His jaw was dusted with dark stubble. He must have to shave more than once a day. Her father’s facial hair was like that, grew back so quickly that, like most men, he simply sported a beard and merely kept it trim. She wondered why the baron didn’t, wondered so many things about him. Was he lonely without family? Whom did he talk to when he needed a friend? Did he have a lady in mind to start a family? Someone he was already courting? Did he even want a family of his own someday? He must. He had a title to pass on. Didn’t titled gentlemen take that sort of thing quite seriously?

Not that she would ever ask him any of that. Not that she really cared, was only mildly curious. It was perfectly natural to wonder about the man who had evicted her from her home, then offered temporary lodgings in his own—and caused her so many unusual feelings.

He stirred. She thought his eyes might even have opened, though it was hard to tell. But her heart was suddenly slamming in her chest again. She ducked down behind the bed and crouched there for what seemed an eternity. Even so, she pretty much crawled out of there on all fours, to keep from his immediate view. Her cheeks were flaming. Common sense had returned. She knew she had done a stupid, stupid thing and wasn’t taking any more chances.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

IT WAS A MUFFLED THUD, COMING FROM BEYOND TWO closed doors, but it was enough to wake Larissa. She didn’t find out what the noise had been, though, until she wandered, blurry eyed, into the bathroom, and found one of the household footmen kneeling on the floor there in front of the door that connected to the baron’s room.

The man’s presence startled her to full wakefulness. Wide-eyed now, she just managed to cut off a shriek of surprise, in fact.

But a thorough glance revealed his tools and that he had been installing locks on the doors. It was the doorknob on the one he was working on, accidentally falling to the marble floor, that had made the noise that woke her.

This he apologized for profusely while he explained in embarrassment that he was supposed to have been finished with his task before she arose, so he wouldn’t disturb her. Walking in and finding a man in her bathroom was indeed disturbing, though not nearly so much as it would have been if the man had been the baron instead.

The housekeeper was there as well, supervising, though on the other side of the door in the baron’s room. She made her own presence known by dragging the footman out of there for the time being.